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Diagnosis Part 2ish

After the doctor said it was ALS and we scheduled the EMG and Nerve conductivity test to confirm two days later, I left to go back to work. I pulled into a McDonalds on the way back to work to cry, to ugly cry. I’m not a cryer. At least I think I’m not a cryer but my husband might disagree. I’m not saying crying isn’t necessary but is best done in the shower or when in the car by yourself. When my dad’s diagnosis was confirmed by his first neurologist via EMG I asked him, to the side afterwards, how long we had. He looked so somber. He knew he missed it the last couple appointments because he hadn’t done a physical exam and seen the muscle fibrillation that covered his back and upper arms. He knew it was out of his area of expertise. He knew it was NOT a diagnosis we were expecting. He knew that the progression in the last few months was not a good sign of how things would progress. His answer to my question was medical in nature but the look on his face explained a lot. Too much. There was no 3 to 5 years that you see when you research the disease on google. So I pushed him further, a year? No answer. Just a face full of expression.

I wasn’t a huge fan of this neurologist until this encounter. Not that he wasn’t good, if you have Parkinson’s, this is the office to go to. The look in his face, the pain and sorrow in his face, made him one of my favorite doctors to this day. He had compassion. He had empathy. He knew what was coming.  But there was another McDonalds parking lot ugly crying event on the way back to work that day.

ALS sucks by the way. 

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